


A Loser's Guide to Everything

by Silvercyclops



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, a birder's guide to everything AU, ben bev and mike are here but not for long, it kind of makes sense in terms of the movie, mike and stan are step siblings!!, no one's seen this movie this is completely self indulgence, oh also the turtle is here in kind of a cringy way i'm sorry, stan's mom and mike's dad are also here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 21:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21167966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvercyclops/pseuds/Silvercyclops
Summary: On the eve of his mother's wedding, Stan Uris and his friends embark on a road trip to re-find a rare bird and maybe find some romance (or the birder's guide to everything au that only I asked for)





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> everyone I beg you pls go watch this movie it's one of my absolute favorites and at the end of each chapter I'm gonna talk about the scenes I changed around and why i did. anyway, I hope y'all like it even if you don't watch the movie!  
i just realized i did't put a disclaimer so this plot and like half the dialogue isn't mine pls don't   
sue me luke matheny and rob meyer

If there was one thing Stanley Uris loved, it was birds. All the best memories as a kid involved sitting on different park benches with his dad, binoculars and bird book in hand, scanning the trees for flashes of movement. They would strain their ears listening for the different, distinctive songs of the birds they didn’t have cataloged in their journals. Sometimes, they would bring a picnic and leave the crusts of their peanut butter sandwiches out for the birds they loved so much, but other times he and his dad would just sit there enjoying the day and the time they got to spend together. That all changed when his dad got sick. The days spent in the warm summer sun sketching cardinals and robins were changed into hours spent in the hospital, trying to think of something to say, anything to say, but the words of comfort or encouragement always got stuck in his throat because Stan knew deep down that his dad was never going to get better. The last good day he got to spend with his dad would be in this bright,too clean and polished hospital in between his dad’s bouts of sleep. To be fair though, it was a good day. They rifled through their old journals, pointing out a particularly good drawing or a funny observation. A pigeon had landed on the window sill, and his dad made him sketch it at least five times even though they had sketched and photographed enough pigeons to last a lifetime. As he said his goodbyes and his final “I love you’s” his dad turned to him and whispered. “Don’t lose this Stanley. Keep the birds. I want you to look at every sparrow and every duck and every blue jay and remember me, ok?” “Ok.” he had whispered back. 

His dad had died over two years ago, right after Stan’s eighth grade graduation, and Stan still kept his promise. He still adored bird watching , and had even convinced Richie and Eddie to start a club with him about it at school. They weren’t too keen on the whole “sitting still and being quiet” aspect of the activity, and Eddie always complained about the grass pollen, but they loved him and were happy to indulge in his interests. Beverly and Ben had also been added to the crew and were also happy to join Young Birders’ Society, as they weren’t apart of any other clubs. Things with birding and his friends were going great, but it was a different story on the family side of things.

After his dad had died, Stan’s mom had taken it extremely hard,which was to be expected. Stan tried to comfort her as best as he could, but that was never his area of expertise. He was a fantastic listener and advice giver in his opinion, but comfort was an area he definitely needed more practice in. His mom went to a grief group, and it seemed to help her a lot. While she was there, she met a man named Will Hanlon who was grieving his wife. They confided in each other and truly bonded, and after a year they were officially together. Will and his son Mike had moved in to the Uris’ big empty house,giving it the warmth it desperately needed, and after another couple of months his mother was engaged. Stan liked Will he truly did, but he felt like everything was moving too fast. Their wedding was coming up in a week and Stan couldn’t help but feel as if the wedding was the thing that would finally erase Donald Uris from their home, and he never wanted that to happen. He wanted to tell his mom to take it slower, but she looked so happy, and Stan never wanted to see the smile fade from Andrea Uris’ face the way it had two years ago.

“-Stanley?” His mom’s voice broke him out of thought at breakfast.  
“I’m sorry, I was..just thinking about some stuff. What were you saying?” He poked at the waffle Will had made. He was a great cook, no one could deny that.

“I wanted to check and see how your toast was coming along.” Oh right. The toast. Stan was best man at the wedding and had to give the toast. He honestly hadn’t thought of what he wanted to say yet. He knew that somehow his dad would probably come up in anything he would try to write, and that would be awkward for everyone there. 

“Can’t I just say ‘Here’s to mom and Will?’” He knew it was lame but that’s all he really wanted to say. He saw his mom take a deep breath across the table and he knew that his reluctance was not helping her stress levels. Will started to massage her shoulder, a comforting gesture he knew his mom always loved. 

“You could,” Will said, smiling warmly at Stan. “It’s just that Mike has his song he’s singing as your mom walks down the aisle, and we want you to have something just as special. It’s a day for everyone in this family, not just me and your mom.” Stan nodded and mumbled something about thinking about a speech during school. That seemed to please his mom as she looked up and smiled, and then told him not to forget to pack his lunch before he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so in the movie, David kinda gets a step brother but he's only at the end and I wanted Mike to be around a bit more so here he is. there's also the opening scene where david falls off the roof and that seemed very not like stan at all so i just kinda skipped over it and of course the movie has some flashbacks and i didn't know how to translate them or the montages into fic form so i just did whatever felt right. hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a nice bit of this story done, and I've been writing it each night so hopefully i can get it all out in a few days

Stan had to admit that the bike ride to school was one of his favorite parts about the day. He and Mike would ride together, talking about something funny one of their respective friends had said or an interesting movie they had caught on TV. Mike was a great presence in Stan’s life, and he was glad to call him his brother no matter how fast he thought his mom and Mike’s dad were moving. Mike was always there to combat loneliness, and to provide a nice audience whenever Stan wanted to talk about birds. Will and Mike used to live on a farm, so Mike would sometimes add to the conversation some stories about his sheep and cows which Stan always enjoyed hearing about. Mike was patient, kind, funny, and smart as hell, and Stan really appreciated having him around.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a quack and a flash of a wing. He skidded to a stop,popped the kickstand, grabbed his camera from his bag, and headed off in the direction of the duck. He caught the duck going down a side street and managed to grab a quick picture. It wasn’t very good, but the bird had already ran into the bushes and Stan didn’t want to be late for school.

“You good?” Mike asked.  
“Yeah, the duck it just- it looked weird, I want to talk about it in YBS today.” The other four, while not super knowledgeable, definitely knew enough to tell if the bird was indeed a breed of duck new to Derry, or a normal one with abnormal coloring which Stan feared it was. He had always wanted to find something new and exciting, but Derry was always full of the same old birds. 

He and Mike split at the school’s entrance to go find their friends. (Mike was on the football team, and he hung out with his teammates and some members of the marching band.) Richie was messing with his locker but turned when he heard Stan coming. He launched into a big story about his sister breaking curfew because she was out with her boyfriend and the supposedly funny lecture his parents had given her but he stopped midway through a sentence. “Oh shit it’s Greta. Uhhhh, act like I said something funny in 3,2,1.” Richie burst out laughing while Stan stayed silent as he put his lunch in his locker. Richie kicked his foot, trying to get him to go along with whatever he was trying to accomplish. “Why aren’t you laughing,” he hissed as Greta Keene stopped in front of them. 

“Hey uh, Richie, did you get a chance to look at that chemistry sheet?” she asked, a fake smile plastered on her face.

“I did! I actually think it’s some of my best work, and that’s a lot coming from me.” Richie pulled out a folder from his backpack and produced the homework Stan saw him do last night over Skype.

“Thanks a ton. I don’t know what I’d do without you, you’re like totally a lifesaver.” Greta let out a strained laugh and turned to go rejoin her friends. 

“She’s so hot isn’t she?” Richie asked. Stan had to cringe a little at that. He’d been suspecting for a little while that all of Richie’s comments about sex and hot girls weren’t exactly genuine, but he was going to let Richie cross that bridge when he got there. So instead of commenting on Greta Keene’s presumed hotness that he didn’t see in the slightest, Stan asked a question.

“You’re doing her homework now?” He just couldn’t picture it. Sure, Richie was smart enough to do it, but he barely did his own homework, much less someone else’s. Stan had dropped by on some of Richie and Eddie’s homework sessions and it had been much more focused on throwing wadded up paper at each other and arguing for the sake of arguing rather than the homework at hand. 

“Sure am Stan the man. I figure that in a few weeks of chem worksheets, I can take the whole lab partners situation to the next level. Like the sex level.” Richie let out some genuinely awful moaning noises and attempted to get Stan in on the action. 

“Yeah ok, whatever. Can we just go to class before I literally die of embarrassment in a public school hallway? Definitely not my ideal way to go.” Richie laughed at that before tossing his arm over Stan’s shoulder as they headed towards first period history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so peter and timmy are pretty similar to richie and eds but nerdier and more into birding so i had to change that around but hopefully it works. other than the slight character reworks and adding mike, nothing else has really changed. anyway hope you're all doing well and i'll see you again later


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing richie and eddie interactions for the first time feels like such a daunting challenge i hope they're not too out of character

After school, Stan and Eddie walked together from the science wing to the library. When they went to the “official” Young Birders’ Society table, Bev and Ben were already seated with honestly kind of depressing looks on their faces. “Oof. What happened to you guys?” Eddie said as he plunked himself into his favorite chair. (He insisted that it was the least sat in chair in the library, making it the cleanest by default. Stan didn’t have the heart to tell him kids were always switching them around during class.)

“Well, we were gonna wait until Richie got here, but we all know that’s going to take fuckin forever so here goes. Me and Ben are uh, well theater is doing Into the Woods for the spring play and I really wanna be in it and Ben is like a god of set design so uh,we kind of have to quit YBS?” Bev let out in ramble . She did look sorry and Stan, while a little sad, was excited for her to go and do something she was actually invested in. He told the two as such, and Ben smiled that soft comforting smile he was so good at.

“Thanks Stan, but we’ll be back before you know it. And with Richie still here, you’ll barely even notice that we’re gone.” They all laughed as Richie walked in at the end of Ben’s sentence and let out an indignant “hey!” Ben and Bev gave the remaining three club members quick hugs and then walked towards the theater hand in hand. 

“Ok now that’s there’s only three of us, I don’t think the school recognizes us as a club anymore, but whatever. What are they gonna do? Kick us out of the library? Anyway, Rich, will you read us the minutes?” Eddie took his job as vice president pretty seriously, and liked to do most of the talking which Stan didn’t have a problem with. He just wanted to share his hobby with his friends.  
It didn’t matter to him who was technically in charge or whatever, as long as they were having a fun time.

“Well, Vice President Spaghetti, here’s the minutes from the YBS meeting dated May 4th 2019. Mr. Staniel Uris showed us his new book about birds of the Amazon which featured some pretty sweet pictures if I do say so myself. Yours truly propositioned us investing in hang glider to boost membership, but that was unfairly shot down 4-1, though I did see the cogs turning in Bev’s head.”

“Richie I swear to God I shouldn’t have to keep telling you why a hang glider is such a dumb fucking idea! I mean, what teenager do you know that has enough money to buy one, and what do they actually do with it? And not to mention, it’s one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever fucking seen! You’re holding onto a single bar or some shit like that! It’s a death trap and I don’t need that in my life! And if you call me Vice President Spaghetti one more time I’m gonna break your dick. And if you say anything about my mom being disappointed or some shit I’ll break it again.” Stan rolled his eyes and smiled at the outburst. Typical Eddie, a lot of people saw him as the nicest or least “threatening’ of the group but that was definitely not true. He was always going off about something, and Richie normally made it a million times worse, but they were great to have around. 

“Uh well, I had something I wanted to bring up, but if you two aren’t done I’ll wait.” Richie and Eddie motioned for him to continue, and Stan pulled the small digital camera out of his bag. He guessed he could use his phone for bird sighting picture, but he much preferred how the camera felt in his hands, and he even kinda liked how all the pictures ended up looking slightly awful. It gave everything a more “real” quality that the crystal clear pictures on his cell phone just didn’t have. Stan turned the picture towards the other two boys. “I saw this on the way here this morning, and I don’t know, I got a weird feeling about it.”  
“I don’t know, looks like an eclipsed-plumage white-winged scoter to me,” Eddie said, looking quite proud of himself for spitting out that breed. “We should mark the image as inconclusive and carry on with the meeting.

“I think we should find the bird again,” Stan said, feeling a bit frustrated. He didn’t think it was the scoter, he thought it was something cooler, and he was disappointed that Eddie didn’t feel the same.

“I think Stan’s right Eds,” Richie piped up. “A rare bird sighting could definitely boost membership, and you know what else could? Getting a hang glider! I mean, think about it, girls think sporty guys are like way hot. With a hang glider we could be absolute pussy magnets.”

“Beep beep Rich,” Stan said. “ But thanks for the backup about the duck. I don’t know I just think that it’s something we should really focus on. If we did manage to see a rare duck, it could be the first time it was seen in Derry. We could get like our names in a birding book or something.”

“Stan, you’ve one hundred percent convinced me. You know what chicks dig more than sporty guys? Famous guys! I’m gonna be rolling in it if we find this fucker again. I mean, hopefully I will be. Maybe all the girls will be focused on our cutie of a vice president, but I definitely don’t blame them.” Richie reached over to pinch Eddie’s cheek, but Eddie managed to fight him off. 

“Ok I get it, I’ve been overruled, but can we at least sleep on it? Stan, you’ve got like a million bird books at home why don’t you go through some tonight and see if the duck’s in any of them?” Eddie leaned back in his chair a bit, somehow biting his pen in the process.The red ink exploded in his mouth resulting in a cry of “Fuck!” from Eddie. “My mom is gonna flip her shit if she sees this. She’s gonna think it’s blood and I’ll spend the weekend in the dentist getting my gums stabbed. I gotta cut this meeting short, sorry Stan.” Eddie got up and sped toward the bathroom. Richie said a goodbye to Stan and then followed Eddie, which was to be expected. Even if he didn’t realize it, Stan could tell how bad his best friend had it for Eddie. He smiled to himself, packed up his books and camera, and went outside to find Mike so they could bike home together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so ben and bev are replacing caroline and the other kid who are like not even in the movie and it pains me to not include these two more, but the movie really only has the four main characters and i didn't want to change it too much :( in the movie peter's a bit meaner and more dismissive of david and i didn't want to make eddie seem like a dick so this is what we ended up with. also in between this chapter and the next there's a scene in the movie where david's dad wants him to pick what stuff of his mom's they can donate and the whole scene reads much more bill to me so i didn't include it


	4. Chapter Four

The next day in the library, Stan dumped four birding books on the table. “This is only a small portion of what I went through last night. I looked at every duck so closely that I definitely had dreams about them, but that’s not the point. The point is that none of these are a match. It’s rarer than I thought.” It had been a hectic night filled with his mom and Will catching him up on wedding plans, but Stan was sure as could be that none of these were the duck.

“Did you check the critically endangered list?” Richie asked as he looked up from his sixth round of tic tac toe with Eddie. 

“Rich, the critically endangered list has the west indian whistling, the laysan and the white-headed duck, and it’s none of those.” Stan was pretty impressed that Eddie knew that, but Eddie has always been the kind of person to never half-ass his hobbies, even if he was only in the hobby out of politeness. Eddie placed his x and let out a triumphant laugh when he connected his row. 

“So what’s rarer than critically endangered?” Stan heard the excitement in his voice and hoped the others knew where he was going with this.

“Well, nothing. After critically endangered it goes extinct,” Eddie said. After the tic tac toe game, Richie had taken up doodling on Eddie’s hand. Eddie seemed fine with it until he looked down and saw the large and rather detailed penis adorning his palm. “One day Richie! All I want is one fucking day of peace! He lightly flicked Richie in the ear. “Anyway, you don’t think you saw an extinct duck? Like that’s not possible is it?” 

“This would be so huge. Like think about it boys,if Greta Keene knew that I rediscovered an extinct duck, she’d definitely let me do her. Possibly doggy style.”

“Richie, the term “doggy style” is offensive to women,probably dogs as well,and as if Greta Keene would even think about being something other than your lab partner.”

“I think you guys are missing the point, as usual. This is an extinct duck roaming around Derry,”Stan said, excitement still in his voice.

“Well, the wing marks concern me,but they always kinda concern me. I say we need to find the duck again and get an expert’s opinion,’ Eddie said. Richie perked up at the last part.

“I can get us a meeting with Dr. Maturin,”Richie said. Dr. Maturin was a pretty well known birder who had the misfortune of moving to Derry. His office was just downtown, but Stan had never had the guts to actually try to talk to him.

“Is this because because he said you had nice style at that book signing we went to?” Eddie asked.

“Um, he said my style was ‘interesting’, and yes that’s exactly why. Dick.” Richie stuck his tongue out at Eddie who flashed a small smile and turned to Stan. 

“If asshole here can get us a meeting, then I say we go for it. Even if Maturin says it’s just a normal duck with unusual feathers, then hey, at least you got to meet him right?”

“Yeah, you’re right Eddie. This is a big deal either way for me. Richie, uh I hate saying this, but lead the way.” The boys stood up and Richie flung his arms around Stan and Eddie’s shoulders as they walked out of the library and towards downtown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole latin class setting for this conversation has always been kind of weird to me so i changed that around. i also hope that the turtle being ben kingsleys character isn't too awful but it does pain me every time i type it


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for me to make up towns because i don't want to deal with the logistics of travel times and such to real Maine lakes lmao

When the trio entered the office, it seemed to be empty. There was a front desk where a secretary theoretically should be, but no one was there and the computer was turned off. “Uh, well, the sign outside said it was open so you can’t pin this all on me,” Richie said. Then, a man carrying far too many boxes appeared out of the hallway.

“Oh hello there. My secretary’s out to lunch and this,” he gestured to a motion sensor doorbell on the wall, “should’ve went off when you came in.” He set down the boxes and gave the doorbell a hit. A bird call echoed through the room. “Anybody?”

“That’s uh, a yellow warbler?” Stan said. Dr. Maturin looked pleased at that answer.

“Excellent, excellent. Please, come in,” he said, motioning for the boys to follow him down the hallway. They entered the office and Stan looked around in amazement. He couldn’t believe he was here, in a renowned birder’s office. This was like a dream come true. The walls were lined with birding posters, certificates, and awards that Dr. Marurin had won for his research and findings. Stan could spend all day in here listening to Maturin talk about his research and all of his stories from his travels, but when the man told them to have a seat he suddenly remembered what they were here for. Stan pulled the camera out and showed Maturin the picture he took. 

“Sorry the picture is so blurry sir, I was on my bike when I took it.” Stan couldn’t help but feel a bit silly when he said that. Here he was in the presence of a birding legend and all he had to show him was a blurry picture he had taken on his bike. Dr. Maturin however, looked delighted at that statement.

“That’s fantastic. That’s the great thing about this field. You could have degrees upon degrees in the subject, or you can be a high school kid on a bike. It doesn’t matter, absolutely anyone can be a birder.” Stan felt much better hearing him say that. He definitely agreed with that statement. Hell, even Richie and Eddie were becoming birders, and they seemed like two of the least likely people to join the hobby. “Now, close the door.” Maturin said. “Are any of you familiar with the term ‘Lazarus species’?” Richie raised his hand slightly. “You. Glasses.”

“It’s an organism being discovered to be alive after having been considered extinct.” Richie leaned back in his chair and shot Stan a satisfied smirk. 

“While Lazarus species are extremely rare, I myself had the pleasure of being among those to rediscover the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2005. Now certain scientists dispute my claims but they’re simply fools. And now on May 13th of this year, you may, and I do stress ‘may’ have spotted a labrador duck. The first bird to go extinct in North America, no one’s seen this little guy since 1878.”

“So it’s possible then? You really think Stan saw a labrador duck?” Eddie asked. 

“I think the picture is too blurry to prove anything, so I say the only thing to do is find the duck again,” Maturin said. Stan thought about that for a second.

“Wait, the duck is probably migrating. It could be anywhere by now.” Stan deflated. He had gotten so close to actually discovering something, and now he would probably never see that stupid duck again. 

“Which means, if you want to find this duck, you boys had better get a move on. I’d say it’s heading north with the scoters. It’ll be attracted to large bodies of water. Now, my guess is it’ll be in Oak Hills by tomorrow morning.”

“Aw fuck yeah boys! We’re going on a duck hunt!” Richie yelled and slapped the arms of his chairs. Stan and Eddie both shot him an unamused look, and turned to let Maturin continue.  
“Now, I must warn you boys. I don’t know if you’ve read my memoir,” Stan had read the book at least five times, and told him as such. “So then I don’t need to tell you,but I spent a year and a half in Ecuador following the pale-headed brush finch only for me to discover that it was indeed, the white-headed brush finch. What I’m trying to get at is I hope you lads find your bird, but try not to get your hopes up too much.” 

“Uh sir, sorry to cut this short,but if I don’t get home in like ten minutes, my mom will have an aneurysm,” Eddie said.

“And if I don’t get Eds home in time, Mrs. K won’t let me have my way with her tonight, and let me tell ya, that would be a tragedy.” Maturin chuckled at that while Eddie sighed loudly. 

“Well, keep me informed boys, and never hesitate to call. Oh, and a bit of advice if you don’t mind me giving it to you. Get yourselves a better camera, preferably one with a strong telephoto lens. Having the wrong kind of equipment is what rendered this photo useless in the first place.” Eddie and Richie nodded at that and turned to leave, but Stan stayed behind. He had something he wanted to say. 

“Dr. Maturin? Do you think that you could sign my book?” Stan pulled the book out of his bag. It had been his dad’s, and was one of Stan’s prized possessions. His dad had even written a little note in it to Stan, “look to the skies!” the note read. 

“First edition, I guess you’re a true fan kid,” Maturin said, scribbling his name on the cover page.

“It was my dad’s book sir. We uh, we used to go birding all the time. It was our favorite thing to do together, and it really helped us bond. My dad, he died a few years ago, and this book is one of my favorite things in the whole world because it reminds me of the times he and I had.” Stan didn’t mean to dump that on Maturin, but the man gave Stan a comforting look. 

“I’m very sorry to hear about that Stan,” he said, and gave Stan a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Stan thanked him for the book, and left the office. He felt more confident about the duck search now. Oak Hills was under two hours away from Derry. They could go there, get the picture, and be back all before his mom’s wedding which started at six on Sunday. He started planning and scheduling an itinerary. That made everything feel more real somehow.If they had a concrete plan, then anything was possible. He and his friends could actually rediscover the labrador duck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think bill is finally showing up next chapter i didn't realize how long it took for ellen to actually become part of the movie oof


	6. Chapter six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bill gets dunked on a lot by the fandom, but i still love this funky lil dude

Stan skyped Richie and Eddie later that evening, and told them his plans.

“I’m sorry guys but I don’t know if I can do this. I mean my mom would never let me drive that far without her, and she definitely wouldn’t let me spend the night outside. Oh, and she definitely wouldn’t want me to be with Richie outdoors for that long. She thinks you’re out to kill me or something Rich.” Eddie had a valid point, but he was also the only one with a full license rather than a permit, and they kind of needed him.

“You can just tell her that you’re staying at Ben’s house or something.” Ben’s mom had quickly become one of their favorite people. When Eddie wanted to stay at Richie’s house or if any of them wanted to stay at Bev’s aunt’s house Mrs. Hanscom would pick them up and assure parents that their son would be well taken care of at her house. She was a lifesaver and no one could thank her enough. 

“Eds, baby, think about it. This duck could be the shining beacon that leads all the nerds to YBS, and with the right publicity, we could be reaping major rewards. I’m talking fame-wise, money-wise, and vagina-wise. Eds, your mom will finally realize that what she’s feeling for me isn’t just lust, but pure white hot love.”

“Richie, shut the fuck up about my mom I’m begging you. Anyway, Stan I hope this works out because if my mom finds out I’m doing this shit, you guys are probably never seeing me again, and we all knew Richie would miss me too much.” Eddie shot Richie a wink, and Stan saw him come as close to melting as a human being could. 

“Yeah Eddie, I got this shit planned. I even know how to get us our camera.” This was the part Stan felt the most unsure about, but it was really too late to back out now. 

On Friday after school, Stan walked to the yearbook classroom and headed towards the dark room. A boy was seated at the desk in front of the room, and looked up when he saw Stan coming. Wow. The boy had soft red hair, bright blue eyes, and a kind looking face. He maybe the prettiest person Stan had ever seen.

“Uhhhhh, oh right. I left something in the lab yesterday, so I’m just gonna go grab it?” Stan hated the way every single one of those words came out of his mouth,but honestly he should be proud of himself for getting out something intelligible in front of someone this cute. Fortunately, cute boy didn’t really seem to focus on.

“Uh, okay?” the boy said, handing Stan the key. “I’m B-B-Bill by the w-way. We have a c-c-class together so I f-f-f-figured I should introduce m-m-myself.” A class together? Now that he mentioned it, Stan guessed that he has seen Bill before in the back of English, but he had never really noticed him, which was a complete shame. 

Stan walked into the photo lab and scanned the room for the telephoto lens. He spotted it on a cabinet, and he placed it in his backpack, feeling extremely guilty. This was wrong, he shouldn’t just be stealing from school, but they would only have it for the weekend so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. It still felt bad, sneaking in, lying to Bill, taking the lens, it all felt bad. “It’ll be worth it when we find the duck,” Stan thought. “We’ll find the duck, take its picture,return the stuff, no harm no foul,” Stan smiled to himself when he realized the foul/fowl pun. He double checked to make sure the lens was safe inside the backpack, gave a small wave to Bill on his way out, and headed home to discuss the plan more with Richie and Eddie.

In Stan’s basement, they had spread a map over the coffee table and Eddie was attacking it with a purple sharpie. “Ok so I looked up the migrating habits and speeds of scoters, and the bird will have to rest around here,” he circled an area with a lake in it, “This fifteen mile radius encompasses Cedar Lake at Cockaponset, and it’s probably our best bet, but we also have-” Eddie started to continue but Richie cut him off.

“Eds, I’ve heard enough. I’m putting my money on Cockaponset, not just because it has the word ‘cock’ in it though that is definitely a big plus.” 

“I still think this whole ‘Lazarus species’ thing is a long shot at best, no offense Stan, but yeah, I do think Cedar Lake is our best bet.” Eddie was still nervous about the whole “sneaking off to go bird tracking” thing, which was understandable, but he was still trying to be supportive which Stan appreciated.

“Oh but I have some good news boys. My cousin Eric said he’s loan us some wheels. Pretty sweet right?” Stan had met Eric a few times, most notably when he DJ’d one of Richie’s birthday parties, and he didn’t seem like the kind of person to just loan out his car, but hey you never know. 

“Eric?” Eddie asked. “As in the guy who gets high at all your family reunions?”

“Yeah he’s a cool guy, and he likes me a lot. Trust me on this gentlemen.” As soon as Richie finished talking, the doorbell rang upstairs. “Wait shit, Stan your mom is literally getting married this weekend, are we sure this can’t wait?” 

“Don’t worry, I have it all planned out. We leave Saturday morning, spend the night, and leave Sunday around noon. We’ll be home in plenty of time.” Stan gestured to the whiteboard where he had written down a tentative schedule. While Eddie was inspecting it, Will came down the stairs.

“Oh hi guys,” he said to Eddie and Richie who said their hellos back. “Stan, there’s somebody here to see you. A boy from your school I think. I’ll send him down.” Stan wondered who it could be when Bill came down the stairs.  
“You guys s-st-stole the lens?” He said, looking a bit dumbfounded. He pointed at one of the many papers scattered on the coffee table. “Wh-what’s ‘project anus’?” 

“First of all, it’s anas, and it’s none of your business. We’re working on something important here, and we don’t need anyone creeping in on our hard work,” Richie said, sounding protective. That was the nice thing about Richie, in Stan’s opinion. He could give you shit for days, but when someone else tried, he’d always be there to back you up.

“Ok wh-whatever, Can I j-just have the l-l-lens back?”

“What evidence do you have of this alleged lens theft, if I may ask?” Richie said,trying to go for a British accent for some reason, but it just sounded like he had a weird sinus infection.

“Well it was th-th-there earlier in the afternoon, I g-gave him the k-k-k-keys, he w-went into the lab, and then it w-was gone.”

“Circumstantial,” Richie replied, scooting over just a bit which unfortunately revealed the lens.

“It’s si-sitting right th-th-there!” Bill exclaimed. Richie looked down to where he was pointing,and noticed the lens.

“Fuck! Ah damn it Eddie!”

“Me? This is my fault? I don’t know if you noticed but it was Stan who stole the fucking lens! If anything, it’s your fault for moving!” They continued to bicker as Stan turned to Bill.

“Have you ever heard of a Labrador duck? It was thought to be extinct, but I maybe saw one the other day, and now we’re trying to find it again, and we really needed to lens so the picture wouldn’t suck. I’m sorry, I know it was a shitty thing to do, but this is really important to me.” 

“I-I still don’t k-k-know why it’s called ‘project anus’,” was all Bill said in reply.

“Anas!” Richie called. 

“It’s Latiin for duck,” Eddie supplied.

“You g-guys speak Latin? Th-that’s pretty cool.” 

“You could come with us,” Stan said suddenly. He didn’t know why, he’d only knew this kid for about an hour, but something about him made Stan want to know him better. Richie and Eddie looked up from the couch, confused about this new development.

“Would this s-s-seriously be the f-first photo of this extinct duh-duh-duck?” Bill asked, a slight blush still on his cheeks. 

“Yeah,” Stan answered.

“Well if I come, I w-want to take the p-p-picture.” Richie snapped his head up again at that.

“I don’t think so. No offense new kid, but this is our discovery. Stan probably doesn’t want some non-birder to be stealing his find.” Stan appreciated Richie, he did, but right now he really wanted him to stop talking.

“Well, it’s t-t-take it or leave it,” Bill said.

“We’ll take it,” Stan said. “We leave tomorrow at seven from Richie’s cousin’s house. 25 Southridge drive.” 

“Cool, I’ll s-see you there,” Bill gave Stan one more smile and then headed back upstairs.

“Where’d that come from Stan?” Eddie asked. Stan just shrugged.

“I don’t know, he just seems cool I guess.” Ok maybe Stan had to be a little more honest with himself. Maybe he was getting a little bit of a crush, but no one else needed to know that. All he knew was that tomorrow was going to start hopefully the most important weekend in his life, and he couldn’t be more ready for it. He sent Richie and Eddie home,and headed back up to his room. He double and triple check every map, plan, and itinerary they had written and when he was pretty much fully confident in everything, he started to drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to make the cockapondset joke or it would've killed me so just don't think too hard about the geography and it's all good. also timmy is really kinda nasty to ellen throughout the movie and i didn't want richie to be too mean to bill but idk i hope it works. also also i didnt want the relationship between stan and his mom to be as strained as david and his dad are in the movie so i basically cut out most of the adult stuff


	7. Chapter Seven

Bright and early Saturday morning, the four met up in front of Eric’s house. “I got this don’t worry mi amigos. And Bill.” Richie knocked on the door, but no one answered. He tried again, but to no avail.

“He does know we’re coming, right Rich?” Eddie asked. 

“Yeah, don’t worry Eds, he probably busy or something.” He knocked again, and the door finally swung open. Eric stood in the door frame looking tired, high, or both. He looked like if Richie’s limbs were proportionate to the rest of him, and if he had finally learned how to use a comb.

“Richie, my man,” he said, a slow smile appearing on his face. Already high at seven in the morning, Stan had to give him some credit for being so dedicated. 

“Eric, my man,” Richie replied, trying to match his cadence. “Do you think we could have those keys that we talked about now?”

“The keys? Oh yeah, the keys! Hold on I’ll go grab them.” Eric retreated into the house, and Richie shot the other boys a triumphant grin. 

Eric returned a few minutes later and tossed the key over to Richie. Richie looked at it for a second and frowned. “This is a key to a bike lock.” Stan and Eddie groaned in tandem. They both knew something like this was going to happen.

“Wait, did you want to like, borrow my car?” Richie nodded like it was obvious. “No way dude, for like several reasons. First, there’s insurance issues that would not be easy to resolve in the slightest. Second, how can I know if you or your friends are safe and/or reliable drivers hm? And lastly, me and my girlfriend had plans to hit up the quarry later and get wasted.” 

“Well, now that I’m hearing him he’s making some valid points,” Eddie said. Richie shot him a look.

“Well, thanks Eric. You’re a real cool guy,” Richie said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “P.S. Grandma thinks you’re a communist,” he added as he turned to leave.

“I am a communist,” Eric stated, closing the door and ending the conversation. 

Richie walked towards Eric’s car, and started looking around on the ground. Stan sat on the pavement and placed his head in his hands. They kept getting so close to their plan, and then getting a wrench thrown in them. He didn’t really blame Richie,but it was still frustrating. Richie finished rummaging through the rocks and lawn ornaments, and he held a key up in triumph. “Hey Eddie, ever drive a Honda?”

“Absolutely not Richie. I’m fucking driving a stolen car.”

“Come on Eds, it’s not a stolen car, we’re returning it tomorrow. That’s a borrow if I’ve ever heard of one. And think about it, this your chance to not be a pussy. You’re always letting your mom decide what kind of shit you can do, but not this time. And hey, you can impress the new kid.”

“I th-think Eddie should do wh-wh-what he wants, but yeah I w-w-would be pretty impressed.” Eddie seemed to contemplate that for a minute.

“Fine. But we’re only taking the freeway, and we’re not going over the speed limit. If I die, I don’t want it to be in a car full of you assholes. Sorry Bill. And maybe Stan, but you’re on thin ice bud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the eric scene in the movie in the movie has the most awkward dialogue of the whole movie, so i tried to clean it up a bit hope it works


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love the small "roadtrip" part of this movie so much like they're in the car for maybe ten minutes but it's so fun and I love all the character interactions we get from it

Stan had never actually been in a car with Eddie (his mom only let him drive under her watchful eye), but he could’ve predicted how it went. Eddie poked around the car before getting in, taking an extra hard look at the seat belts and airbags. Once he deemed it safe enough, they peeled onto the highway at the breakneck speed of 35 miles per hour. After an argument with Stan and Richie both telling him how unsafe it was to go under the speed limit, he raised it to 50 and not a hair over. “You have no idea the kind of pressure I’m under. I mean guys, this is the first time my mom hasn’t been in the car with me, and I’m driving a stolen car, and I don’t want to take my hand off the wheel for my inhaler, so just let me drive and don’t complain ok?” It was a miracle that Eddie even had his license (he had come up with a million ridiculous scenarios where having his license would be the only thing that could save him, and fortunately, his mom ate it up), so Stan appreciated having him here. However, he remembered that one of Eddie’s dreams was to become a professional driver, and he hoped that those dreams were a long ways away. 

Stan felt Bill rustle around the pocket of the passenger seat, and the boy let out a small gasp when he pulled something out. “H-holy shit.” Stan turned around to see him holding a plastic baggie full of small crystals. “Is this l-like crack cocaine or suh-suh-something?” 

“Richie what the fuck! Your cousin does crack!?”

“Just keep driving Eddie, it’s probably nothing,” but Richie didn’t sound so sure.

“Maybe it’s r-rock candy?” Bill supplied, trying to be helpful. Richie typed away on his phone and his jaw fell when his presumed Google search loaded.

“Ok, not to worry you guys or anything, but I think it’s crystal meth.” He turned the phone around for Stan and Bill to see, and yeah, it did look pretty similar.

“Throw it out the window,” Eddie said decisively. During this whole situation, he had slowed the car down, probably without even realizing it.

“Ok Eddie, listen, that’s not going to work. Think about it, what if Eric was trying to sell those for a drug lord or some shit like that? What happens when we return the car and Eric goes to that drug lord, and he doesn’t have the money or the drugs? Don’t get me wrong, he’s an asshole, but I don’t want anyone dying.”

“Ok whatever, just keep it hidden,” Eddie said. Bill passed the bag up to Stan who stored it in the glove compartment. 

“Ok boys, now that we got taken care of, we have a more pressing matter at hand. Eddie my love, could you please stop slowing the fuck down? It feels like we’re in a wagon or some shit.” That was a pretty accurate statement. Stan had seen an old lady who could barely see over the wheel pass them a few minutes ago. 

“Well, Richard, if you’re so concerned about my driving, why don’t you do it?” Eddie definitely didn’t sound serious, but he had planted the seed in Richie’s mind, and there was no going back now. 

“Ok, pull over.”

“Richie! We can’t fucking do this. You only have a learner’s permit, and I don’t want to break the law anymore than we already are!” 

“Eddie, you know there’s no getting out of it. Just pull over and let him drive for a while. Who knows, it might even chill him out for a bit,” Stan said. He wasn’t completely on board with the whole situation, but honestly Eddie’s incessant tapping on the breaks was starting to wear on him. He had hope that once Eddie started driving by himself that he’d loosen up a little,but today was not when that was going to happen. Reluctantly, Eddie pulled over and let Richie clamber into the driver’s seat. “Yeah baby, now this is more like it,” he said. Eddie let out a huff.

“This is totally illegal and I’m not here for it, but I guess it’s whatever of it gets you guys off my dick.” 

“You know Eds, your mom like never wants off my dick, and I can’t blame her.” Richie winked, but only Stan could see it.

“Beep fucking beep Richie, and don’t call me Eds.” Richie snorted at that.

“Oh babe, you know it’s never gonna stop, and you love me anyway.” Stan turned to the back to see Eddie blush slightly. Suddenly, the car made a weird sound, interrupting the good moment. “Oh shit, what was that.”

“Kind of sounded like a black-and-white warbler,” Stan supplied. “Or a red-breasted nuthatch, but like coming from the engine.” He mentally added this to the “bad things happening on this trip” tally that had been bouncing around in his head since the first time Eddie had said he probably couldn’t go. Stan had decided that if it hit like, 25 things that he was going to buy himself a gift when they got home.

“Ok well, it only made the noise once, so it should be fine. I’m not going to worry about it, and since I’m driving, I probably know best.” You could practically hear the smirk in Richie’s voice as he said this. “Eddie I know you’re probably freaking out,so can you just do it quietly or something? We don’t want to scare Billiam off on his first day.” Stan turned back to see Eddie silently fuming, and Stan flashed him a playful eye roll. 

They had gone on for about half an hour in a relative quiet, the only sound being the radio and Richie singing along to bits and pieces of it. Richie had decided to put the top down on the car, (something Stan had objected to at first because he knew his hair would end up a tangled mess, but to Richie’s credit, the breeze was exceptionally nice) and now Stan, Bill, and Eddie were passing around binoculars to look at the birds overhead. 

“What’s a f-f-finch look like?” Bill asked, handing the binoculars over to Eddie.  
“Oh a finch, yeah, it’s like small perching bird, and it’s got a small pointed beak,” Stan answered. Bill nodded at that.

“‘My b-boyfriend, he’s in a band c-c-called The Real Finches.” Stan’s eyes bugged out at that. A boyfriend?? He had to admit, he was developing a crush on Bill, but he had fully thought that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Now, he knew Bill liked guys too, but was also off the market. It’s fine, he’ll get over it, no need to focus on a dumb crush when there was a Labrador duck on the line.

“The Real Finches huh? Sounds pretty hard core,” Richie said, and Stan thanked everything that was good in the world for Richie Tozier. Richie was a master at reading Stan, and had probably picked up on his crush as soon as Stan had let Bill come along. 

“I’ve b-b-been hearing your muh-music this whole t-t-time. You can’t even talk s-shit about other people’s tastes,” Bill said laughing.

“Fuck you bro, I’ll have you know that most of these songs really get Mrs. K in the mood.” Richie joined into Bill’s laughter as Eddie piped up with a “Gross!”

Another 20 minutes had gone by, and everyone except Richie was still passing the binoculars around. There had been a gaggle of geese keeping pretty much in time with the car which had entranced them for a while before Bill piped up again. “These binoculars are like, r-r-really sweet. T-totally retro,” he said, passing them back up to Stan.

“Oh thanks. They’re my dad’s.” He always took them with him when he went birding. The filled notebooks of drawings and observations would’ve been hard to carry around everywhere, but the binoculars had a purpose, had a reason for always sticking around with him. 

“His dad, he died a while ago, before you moved here I guess,” Eddie murmured to Bill, quiet enough to be respectful, but loud enough for Stan to still hear. 

“Oh, I’m s-so sorry Stan,” Bill said, but Stan waved him off.

“It’s ok, I just don’t like talking about it all that much. Bill nodded, effectively ending that bit of the conversation.

“Hey guys, sorry to sound like an asshole and interrupt, but for the past ten minutes, that black truck back there has been trailing us,” Richie said, glancing at the side mirror. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want anyone to freak out, especially you Eds, but now that I look at it, there’s definitely guns on the back of that truck.”

“What the fuck!” Eddie yelled, lunging for his inhaler. “Holy shit we’re going to die! Those are probably Eric’s drug lord bosses and now they’re here to kill us!” Bill put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.  
“Hey R-richie, why d-d-don’t you slow down and see if t-they pass us?” Richie obliged and the truck did indeed speed past them. 

“There we go chaps!” Richie said in his awful British guy voice. “Crisis averted.” He turned onto their exit, and in a few minutes they were at their stop of the trip: a small mom-and-pop outdoor store that specialized in birding that Stan had been too a couple times before with his parents. The quartet got out of the car and stretched their legs in the parking for a few minutes before Richie swung his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulled him towards thee store. “Onward my good gentlemen! Many duck calls await your eager ears!” Stan groaned, knowing just how annoying of a pair Richie and a duck call made, but he looked at Bill who just shrugged and smiled, and headed into the shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how a later part of this is going to work if richie doesn't dislike bill as much as timmy dislikes ellen in the movie and is more sympathetic towards stans crush but we'll cross that bridge when we get there


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been trying to make the characterization fit both the actual It characters and the characters arcs in birder's guide and i've been having A Time with richie and bill so let's hope it's not too bad

The store, aptly named “Birder Supply Plus”, was a small store filled top to bottom with anything a birder could want. Bird seed, binoculars, numerous guide books, and more filled the shelves and made Stan feel instantly at home. It was also decently crowded, which Bill had voiced confusion at. “Is t-today an important duh-duh-day for birding or something?” He whispered to the group.

“Nah, it’s just Saturday,” Richie said with a shrug. He grabbed Eddie by the wrist and began to scour the shop for his precious duck calls.

Stan and Bill wandered around for a bit,Stan pointing out the different kinds of gear while trying to seem cool and knowledgeable but probably failing miserably. Bill seemed to be eating it up however. “So, w-w-what’s exactly go-going on here?” He asked, gesturing to the other customers.

“Ok um so,” he pointed to a group of older guys who were meticulously inspecting some bird seed. “I call those guys the feeder fillers. Basically they just want to have a bunch of bird feeders and want to attract a robin, or a bluejay, or a cardinal, or something like that. They don’t really care as long as they have birds there.” He then pointed to two guys in their late 20’s or early 30’s who were looking at their phones and a small notebook while having an animated discussion. “Those guys are listers. They love all the data, and charts, and they never forget any detail when they write down their observations. Very meticulous, if my mom was a birder she’d probably be a lister.” He stopped, and looked over at Bill who was watching him with rapt attention and a smile on his face. Stan felt his cheeks heat up, and he looked away instantly. 

“S-s-so what kind of birder are you?”

“Well, there’s one more kind. The watchers. Dr. Maturin, who’s a really famous birders and has written like many books on this, describes watchers as ‘wanting to achieve a transcendent connection between nature, kind of like erasing the line between bird and human souls? I don’t know, it sounds ridiculous now that I say it.”  
“I d-don’t know, I th-th-thought it sounded nice. Very poetic,” Bill said. “Let me g-guess though, you’re a watcher?” 

Stan shook his head. “There’s actually very few watchers out there. In the world of birding,most of us are listers wanting to be watchers.” He shrugged and turned to Bill who was about to speak when he was interrupted by the sound of a duck call. 

“Guess what I found fuckers! Not only are they prime for annoying you guys, but I think it could actually be helpful for finding the you know what,” Richie said, lowering his voice on the last part. 

“I don’t know, what?” A voice rang out from behind the group. Stan turned around to see the guys he had pointed out to Bill when they were talking about listers. 

“Uh, nothing really,” Eddie said, but he didn’t sound very convincing. The two guys definitely didn’t look convinced. The taller one crossed his arms and continued.

“Where you boys headed?” He asked, trying to sound casual, but Stan heard something else in his voice.

“Yeah uh, we’re heading out to Cockaponset.” Stan answered, wanting to get out of the conversation before anyone said anything else suspicious.

“Ah yes, the cock,” the shorter of the two guys said, causing Richie to elbow Eddie in the side and let out a snort. “Anyway, you guys from around here?” 

“No we’re from Derry actually,” Stan answered, trying to subtly back away from the two guys. He didn’t want to be here anymore, he just wanted to get back in the car and get to the lake, but of course the universe had other plans for him. 

“Oh yeah? What do you guys see up there?” The taller guy asked. 

“Hooded warblers, arcadian flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo, yellow-winged vireo, a lot of geese-” Stan was going to continue but the taller man cut him off. 

“Really, you saw a yellow-winged vireo in Derry?” His tone sounded extremely condescending. 

“Don’t be an asshole Steve,” the shorter man said.

“I’m sorry Peter, but I’m just saying.” 

Stan stood there confused and wanting to a little bit for a second before he realized his mistake. “Oh sorry, yellow-throated vireo. So, uh what do you guys see?” Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that, he had meant to just leave but no, obviously not.  
“Yeah we just had a great trip. Went to Tanzania, saw an usambara eagle-owl, and a bunch of other shit like that. Not bad for our first year.” The taller man, Steve, chuckled. “Yeah, our first year. Last year we climbed the Seven Summits, this year we’re going for world record of most rare birds spotted. In ten months, we’ve seen over 350 endangered species.” He ended with a smirk, and was probably expecting the group to look impressed. Stan caught Richie and Eddie’s eyes and shook his head while the other two rolled their eyes. They had read about some of these ‘extreme hobbyists’ before and kind of hated them. Richie and Eddie weren’t hardcore birders like Stan, but they still had more passion then these guys who were just after the fame. Unfortunately, Bill wasn’t as unimpressed and he got a look of determination in his eyes.

“Stan saw a l-l-labrador duck,” he said, looking towards Stan for approval. Stan had definitely wanted to avoid this. He didn’t want people to steal his finding, especially not these assholes. This was his thing, but as he looked over at Bill, still smiling, he knew he couldn’t stay mad. They could spin this around, make it ok. 

“You do know that bird is extinct right?” the other man, Peter, asked. 

“I’m sorry guys, he’s not a birder, we just brought him along to take pictures this weekend, he doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about,” Richie said, trying to communicate with Bill to go along with his coverup through widening his eyes and making slight head nods. Bill gave many quick side glances at the men and gave a slight nod back, signalling that he understood. The men looked at Bill, noticed the camera, and seemed to buy the story. Stan filed away another thank you that he owed Richie. 

“That’s what I thought. Claiming to see an extinct duck, especially without any proof, is a big claim. I mean, you guys do have the camera, but there’s no pictures on it, right? Steve asked. 

“I mean yeah, we have some pictures of ourselves, but not of any birds, and besides, pretty hard to take a picture of something that doesn’t exist,” Richie said. “Anyway gents, mighty fine talking to you, but we must get going. If we don’t get a camping spot completely free of literally any plant, Eddie will probably die, and that would honestly be a disservice to the universe.” Richie ruffled Eddie’s hair a bit, and instead of rolling his eyes and complaining, Stan could swear he saw Eddie smile a bit. Richie blew the duck call one last time, gave a nod and a “good birding” to the men, and corralled the other three boys out of the store. Once they were out of the building and near the car, Richie turned to Bill. “A labrador duck William? I’m sorry Bill, but you’re a complete idiot. You might’ve completely blown our chance.” He actually sounded a little mad, so Stan decided to step in. 

“Richie, I think they believed you, so I’d say we’re pretty safe. Besides, it was an honest mistake, we shouldn’t be blaming Bill.” Richie glanced between Bill and Stan and sighed. 

“Yeah ok, let’s just get to the lake,” he said while opening the door for Eddie with a flourish. 

The final stretch of the drive started off pretty uneventful, with Stan only complaining about Richie’s shit taste in music once. He liked 80’s pop as much as the next guy, but no one needed to hear ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ more than twice. After a quick back and forth between them, the car had quieted again.Stan was just about to drift off into a short nap when the car started making the weird bird noise again. “Shit Richie, I think that was louder than the last time. What if the car fucking explodes and they have to scrape us off the highway? That would be the worst fucking way to go. Well, probably not, but still.” Richie started to reply to Eddie and calm him down when the engine started smoking. 

“Fuck off!” Richie yelled as he pulled over. They all got out and just sat there staring at the smoking car for a minute. Eddie then took a puff of his inhaler and walked over to the front of the car. He pulled the hood up, coughing as he fanned away the smoke. 

“Yeah, I think the alternator got overheated. Not a super big thing, but we’re definitely not making it to Cockaponset,” Eddie said. Stan let out a groan. Of course. Why didn’t he think that the car would break down? That seemed like it was bound to happen on this trip from hell. 

“I th-think we should see about heading home,” Bill said quietly. Richie ran his hands through his hair and turned to Bill.

“Of course. Of course! Of course you would want to go home! Bill, I know Stan trusts you and wants you here, but you’ve really been plucking at my nerves here. First, you just like, invite yourself on the trip, then you tell those assholes at the store what we’re doing! Like do you realize, if they find this duck and steal our chance it’ll be your fault? Not to mention, I had to go to like five separate rest stops for you. That’s way too fucking many.” Richie took a deep breath as he finished. Stan knew that Richie wasn’t the biggest fan of Bill, but he thought that was just an “at first” kind of thing, and that the two were warming up to each other. If he had to take a guess, Stan would say that now that Richie had gotten everything off his chest, things probably would start getting better. Richie was like that, you wouldn’t know how he was feeling until he just kinda let it all fall out. Once he got things out in the open, he was much more open to discussing his feelings and listening better to others, but the look Richie had on his face made Stan think not every issue was resolved. He hoped Bill and Richie could be friends, but the outlook wasn’t looking so hot.

Bill looked pretty dejected, probably due to both Richie and the car situation. “I know I f-fucked up, ok? I’m sorry, but you gotta th-think about it. We can t-take a bus home or something, b-b-but if we go to the lake, we have to find a way to get th-th-there and then another way back, and I don’t know how we’re going to d-d-do that.” Richie nodded, because Bill was right. Stan knew his mom couldn’t just pack up on her wedding day to pick up her son and his stupid friends, Eddie’s mom would probably murder Stan, Bill, and Richie on the stop if she knew where they were, and Richie’s parents were in a dentist convention in Bangor. A bus home was really their best option at this point. “I also brought a t-telphoto lense and f-f-five years of photography experience, what about y-you?” Bill asked with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood. Richie took the bait and smiled back, still looking a little uneasy but trying his best. 

“Let me think, uh excellent leadership skills, amazing driving capabilities, a kickass sense of humor, awesome logic skills, fluency in Latin, many different flavors of gluten free granola bars, and awesome logic skills.” 

“You s-said logic skills twice,” Bill said, looking happier then he had a few moments ago. Richie rolled his eyes, looking better too.

“Wait shit guys, where are we?” Richie asked suddenly.

“Just outside of South Ridge,” Eddie answered. “Why?”

Richie pulled out his phone and started furiously dialling. “The Keenes have a house out here. Maybe my lady love can get us out of here.” 

Bill looked at Eddie and then to Stan, a confused expression on his face. “Like G-Greta Keene?” He asked. “Maybe we should b-b-buy bus tickets an-anyways.”

Stan almost agreed with him, but Richie was nodding confidently into the phone. “No it’s fine, I think. They’re kind of friends. I mean, she does call him ‘her personal chemistry hobbit’, but it’s whatever I guess.” 

Richie gave one last grin into the phone and turned to the group. “We’re in boys! She’ll be here in like 25 minutes tops. I mean, we’ll probably be here longer while I thank her, if you know what I mean.” He tried to wiggle his eyebrows, but it really was just a weird forehead scrunch. He wandered back over to annoy Eddie while Stan and Bill seated themselves on a fallen log.

“Do you want to call your parents?” Stan ventured. He definitely wasn’t planning on calling his mom, but he figured Bill might be different.

“Well t-that would involve telling th-th-them where I am, so no thank you.” he answered, laughing to himself like he was in on a joke that Stan could never understand. “I th-think they’re visiting my uncle or s-s-something, and I told them I would p-probably be at a friend’s house this w-w-weekend. I still don’t th-think they’d care if I told them where I w-was, but still, don’t wanna r-rat myself out you know?” He shrugged. Stan didn’t really understand, but he found himself nodding along. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before Bill spoke up again.  
“S-Sorry about your dad. I d-d-didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s ok, I get it. No big deal. Well, I mean, of course it’s a big deal, but you get what I mean.” Him and his friends didn’t really talk about it anymore, they all just let Stan be Stan and that was that. He grieved and he remembered, and his friends were there to be the anchors he needed in his life. “It’s been almost two and a half years,” he added, for no reason other than it floated across his mind and he needed to say it. Bill gave a nod and placed a comforting hand on Stan’s knee for a brief moment before Richie walked up to them.

“Uh hey guys,” he said quietly, taking note of their expressions. “Greta’s here.” Stan looked over at her expensive looking car. He was impressed she actually showed up, so he had to give her and Richie a little credit

“What’s this top secret mission you guys are on?” she said, popping her gum. 

“Well, I’d tell you but I think Eddie would have to kill you if I did. I mean, traditionally it should be the secret tellers job, but Eddie’s pretty violent so I wouldn’t put it past him to take care of it himself,” Richie said as he lifted his backpack into Greta’s trunk. 

Greta was eating this shit up. She tossed her head back and let out a laugh. “Oh my god, you’re like so funny,” she said, her voice raising a bit at the end. Richie turned and gave a smirk to Stan before continuing.

“Yeah, girls tell me that a lot. But coming from you Miss Keene, it is an honor.” Greta gave another giggle as she started the car, filling their ears with cheery bubblegum pop. Eddie sat between Bill and Stan in the back, and Stan and him played a few rounds of hangman while they rolled their eyes at Richie’s attempts of flirting with Greta. He was really laying the charm on thick, but Greta only laughed, not returning any of the banter. Stan’s mind wandered to how Richie’s flirting with Eddie sounded a thousand percent more genuine than whatever he was spitting out to Greta Keene. He hoped that dumbass actually recognized his feelings soon or that Eddie would recognize his, but that was a bridge to cross when those two got there. 

After a while, they arrived at the forest. “Thanks Greta,” Richie said, and the other three boys mumbled an echo of his thanks.

Greta waved them off. “It should be me who’s thank you Richie. I like, don’t know what I would do without you.” She gave Richie another plastered on smile. 

“Oh yeah, you know, I’m Richie. I’m your- I’m your guy.” Richie let out a weak smile as Greta turned the car back on. 

“Yeah well, see you guys at school. Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.” She turned out of the parking area, leaving the four boys finally at their destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im nervous for when we get to the river scene bc of this whole bill richie characterization worry but im also very excited to get to bill and stan's talk in the woods so we'll see how it goes i guess
> 
> I also made a writing playlist that combines the vibes birder's guide gives off to me and some songs that have losers club vibes so check it out if you like :)  
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1D0hswTHxt0bRWnHvcEAaM?si=jho8IEC_RSKi0c4sbbWR9g


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, i was going to update this two days ago but then got distracted and did a water color painting of Richie at the kissing bridge that took me five hours so what can u do, u know?

The euphoria of finally being at the park didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. Richie had been happily leading the pack when he noticed a truck and stopped dead. “Oh fuck. It’s that gun truck from earlier, and shit, no guns.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in a panic as he produced the plastic bag from his pocket. “We gotta call the cops like right now.”

Stan flashed Eddie a look. “Why would you bring it with us?”

“Well see, the thought process was that if anyone came snooping at the car, they wouldn’t find it. It sounded like a solid plan, ok Stan?” 

“Eds if we call the cops what would we tell them? That we stole a truck loaded with drugs? We’ll just keep it hidden and hope that the gun guys didn’t see what we looked like. Everyone cool with that?” The other three boys echoed confirmation, with Eddie throwing in a “don’t call me Eds” with his agreement. 

After that quick discussion, the boys headed deeper into the woods to blow off some steam. Richie chased Eddie around while brandishing a worm on a stick while Bill taught Stan some photography tips. “It’s all about the l-lighting,” he explained. “If it’s too-too bright or too d-d-dark, you’ve ruined what could’ve been a great sh-shot. You m-may think to just use f-f-flash all the time but that wouldn’t b-be the smartest move.” Stan listened intently, a small smile on his face. Bill really was quite cute and the way he lit up talking about photography made Stan melt. He started telling an anecdote about “not putting the camera in p-mode” and the way he kept laughing while he was trying to explain how funny the picture turned out made Stan fall a little in love. He stood up and offered his arm to Bill.

“Wanna take a walk? Actually get some peace for once?” he asked, gesturing to Richie and Eddie who were in a heated debate about the best X-Men. 

“S-sure,” Bill answered, linking their elbows together. They followed a little path that seemed to circle the whole forest. As they walked, Stan pointed out different bird calls, too nervous by Bill’s arm still wrapped around his to think of any other conversation topic. Luckily, Bill seemed happy with that and kept pointing out more for Stan to identify. “How c-can you tell wh-wh-which one it is so quickly?” he said after 10 or so bird calls.

“Well, the best way is to recognize its giss,” Stan explained.

“Its...jizz?” Bill laughed. 

“G-i-s-s. General impression, shape, and size. That’s how you can make a quick ID of a bird, and then you can look it up later to make sure it’s right. Sometimes if you’re at a birdbath, or a bird feeder, you can take the time to flip through a book or look it up on your phone, but most of the time you can really just make quick notes.”

“Y-yeah, it definitely h-h-had a nice giss,” Bill said, still laughing slightly.

Stan rolled his eyes and let out a soft laugh as well. “Yeah, you can imagine the kind of field day Richie had when he found out that acronym. That and the fact that there’s a ‘tit’ family of birds made him insufferable in the beginning, but I don’t know what else I expected.” Stan continued telling Bill about the founding of Young Birder’s Society when he felt his phone ring in his pocket. He checked the caller ID. A lump the size of a basketball formed in his throat when he saw the word “Mom” displayed on the screen. “Shit!” He debated ignoring the call,but figured that would land him in worse trouble. “Hi mom,” he answered, trying his best to sound casual, but absolutely failing at it. 

“Stanley Uris, would you like to tell me where you are?” his mom’s voice had that steely calmness that no one wanted to hear from their mom. He knew as soon as she opened her mouth that if he even thought about lying to her right now, he’d be a dead man.

“We may have discovered an extinct duck in Oak Hills, so we’re here trying to get a picture of it. I promise we’ll be home in time for tomorrow.”

His mom let out a long sigh and he could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose, as she often did when she was overwhelmed or stressed out. “Ok, I just want you to know, you’re grounded after the wedding. Second, please be safe out there. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if you got hurt.” He heard the worry in her voice which did make him feel immediately guilty.

“Grounding, perfectly understandable. And yeah, we’re all good here. The alternator overheated a little bit, but Eddie said it should be a quick fix.”

His mom sighed again, but it sounded more like a sigh of resignation more than anything. “Ok well, see you tomorrow I suppose. But, please try to be on time, you know how much this means to me.” she paused for a second before continuing. “I love you Stanley.”

“I love you too Mom,” he said before hanging up. Bill looked at him with a concerned look on his face. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked, giving Stan’s arm a quick squeeze.

“My mom’s getting married tomorrow. To a guy she met at grief counselling, and he’s really nice and all but I think it’s still too fast and I don’t know if we’re going to be home in time tomorrow, and I feel awful telling her we would be and it’s just, I don’t know, it just is I guess,” Stan rambled, pacing around Bill. Bill stepped forward and placed his hand on Stan’s arm, providing a nice reassuring weight.

“H-hey, it’s ok, breathe. We’ll m-meet back up with Richie and Ed-Eddie, that way we can l-look for the duck more t-today instead of putting it all off until t-t-tomorrow.” He held out his hand for Stan to take which Stan stared at for a solid 30 second before carefully taking it. He knew his hands were probably sweaty and gross, but all of that nervousness washed away when he gave Bill’s hand a squeeze and Bill squeezed his right back.

They met up with Richie and Eddie a few minutes later who were apparently still having their X-Men debate? Stan knew they had many, many favorites, but right now they were just stuck in a heated Gambit vs Kitty Pryde debate. “Guys, can we wrap this up real quick? We got a duck to track,” Stan said, knowing that they could not, in fact, wrap it up real quick, but he was trying his best. 

“Ok but listen Stan, Kitty Pryde was a Guardian of the Galaxy! That’s way cooler than anything Gambit has done! Am I right or am I right?” Eddie asked, doing that hand waving thing he always did when he was heated about something.

“You’re both wrong, the best X-Men are Shatterstar and Rictor, end of story.” He motioned for them to get up, and they complied, but not before Richie could let out a retort that Rogue and Gambit had that comic where they honeymooned in space and that was basically the same thing as being a Guardian. 

They walked along another path, both looking for signs of the Labrador duck, and for a good campsite. Stan and Eddie had agreed that if they saw anything that even slightly looked liked poison ivy, it wasn’t suitable for a camp while Richie chided them, telling the boys to live a little. “When you get poison ivy on your dick, I don’t want to hear you complain,” Eddie said.

“Oh but Eds, you know your mom will take care of that itch for me, she just can’t have her special man in pain,” Richie said with another terrible attempt at an eyebrow wiggle. Eddie picked up a handful of grass and threw it at him in protest. 

Bill snapped pictures every few minutes as they hiked through the woods, and Stan fell back a bit to watch him in action. It was kind of beautiful the way he pointed his camera just so, or the way that he would circle around a flower or rock formation to make sure he was getting the best angle and lighting, or the way his face would break out in the shy secretive smile whenever he was pleased with a photo. He turned to Stan after a while and held the camera out. “Th-there’s a bird in that b-bush over there. Wanna t-t-try and get a shot?” 

Stan shrugged. “It won’t be any good, but yeah sure.” He took the camera out of Bill’s hands and pointed over to where Bill had pointed out the nuthatch. He lined up what he thought was a decent shot, and was pretty happy with what he saw on the screen. “Hey, I guess watching the teenage prodigy really helps your skills,” Stan said, smiling as he handed the camera back.

“Hmmm, it’s d-decent I guess,”Bill said, feigning indifference. The two shared a laugh and walked back up to Richie and Eddie. After a bit more walking, and a run-in with a spider in Bill’s hair, the boys reached a decent sized, fast moving creek.

“Ok so there’s a bridge about two miles that way,” Eddie said pointing north as he looked up from the map.

Stan shook his head. “I don’t know, it’s about to get dark, maybe we should cross here.” It wasn’t his favorite idea, but he didn’t want anyone to fall or hurt themselves walking the trail after dark.

“Look at the current, it’s moving fast enough to be considered dangerous. We should go to the bridge.” Eddie pulled out his inhaler, and breathed into it, a clear sign of his nervousness.

“Listen Eds, it’s proven fact that women cite bravery as the number one thing they look for in guys,” Richie started, but Bill cut in.

“I r-read it was sense of humor. I know I w-would prefer a funny g-g-guy over one that was doing s-stupid stuff to try and impress m-me.”

“Well you see Bill, I said women. Hot, like Greta Keene hot, women prefer physical bravery over any other trait.”

“Oh my god can w-we stop with G-Greta Keene? You keep kissing h-her ass, and I d-don’t even know why because all she’s d-doing is dork baiting you and y-you don’t even seem to l-like her that much! All y-you do is say she’s hot, which she really isn’t, but t-that’s it! I h-haven’t heard you say anything about her that wasn’t about her l-l-looks. It seems r-really superficial.” 

When Stan looked up at Richie, his face had become a mask, a rarity for him. “I do like Greta Keene ok? And she definitely likes me back. And what the fuck is dork baiting?” 

“It’s when a p-popular girl talks to a nerdy g-guy and is s-s-super nice to him, and then uses him to make her f-f-feel good about herself, or fix her computer, or uh, I don’t know, d-d-do her homework for the rest of the year?” 

“I’m doing her homework because we’re friends ok? That’s what friends do for each other. You wouldn’t know because you probably don’t have any.” Stan looked at Richie.He knew this had been brewing since the beginning of the trip, and while Richie had aired some of his contentment when the car had broken down, this seemed like the dam had opened and all of Richie Tozier was being let out at once. 

“R-Richie, it took her less than an hour t-to drive us here and now you’re gonna do her h-homework for the rest of the year? Does th-th-that seem right to you?” Stan saw Eddie try to step in, but he hesitated and turned to Stan with a questioning look in his eye. Stan shook his head; Bill and Richie had to deal with their shit themselves. “You know sh-she calls you her personal ch-chemistry hobbit right?”

“That’s bullshit!”

“S-Stan told me.” Stan wanted to scream, he just wanted to cross this fucking river and go to sleep, but no of course not. Why would something like that ever happen?

“Is that true Stan?” Stan looked at the ground and started to dig his shoe into the grass, the action proving that, yes he had in fact told Bill. “Fuck this, I can’t believe my best friend is just dropping me for some piece of shit we just met!” 

“Richie,” Stan started. “You know I’m not dropping you, I would never do that.”

“Ok guys, we should just fucking cross the river already, I’m sick of this bullshit!” Eddie interjected.

“Eddie, Stan here doesn’t care about us, you know that right? I bet he doesn’t even want to find the Labrador duck either, it’s just about getting into Bill’s pants for him. And don’t even say you’re not because every time I look at you two, you’re trying to flirt and failing at it, or you’re trying to feel him up, or some other shit rather than focusing on your actual friends!” 

Just then, Eddie did take a step towards Richie, but he slipped on a rock which landed his inhaler right in the middle of the creek. His eyes widened as he let out the beginning gasping coughs of his asthma attacks. “Shit!” Richie exclaimed as he splashed into the creek. “Stan you better fucking help me, I swear to god.” Stan laid his bag down and waded into the creek too, feeling around for the inhaler. Bill sat next to Eddie on the bank and tried to help him even out his breathing. Richie surfaced, brandishing the inhaler proudly. He rushed back to shore to help Eddie, cupping the side of his face as Eddie’s breathing finally evened out. “Eddie, I cannot believe you made my big dramatic fight all about you,” he laughed. Richie then turned sheepishly to Bill. “Thanks for staying with him, I mean,I don’t know where else you would’ve gone, but still.”

“I-I’m sorry for that shit I said. It’s j-just that I knew a lot of people like Greta Keene at m-my old school, and I know h-how they work, and I d-d-don’t want you to get hurt because she’s using you.”

“You know, you’re probably right, I mean our friend Beverly never asks Ben to do her homework or shit like that. I don’t know I guess I just liked the attention,” he sighed and turned to Stan. “And Stan, I’m really fucking sorry, I know you’re not trying to abandon me and Eds or any shit like that. I know your life has been pretty not great lately, and I shouldn’t have said anything. If you’re a bit more distant or something, it makes perfect fucking sense.” 

“You should still tell me if think like that, you know? I want to be a good friend no matter what’s going on.” Stan pulled Richie into a quick hug, cringing a bit at how their wet clothes felt “You know you and Eddie will always be my best friends. Losers gotta stick together.” They all nodded at that. They then gathered their things, and after they waded through the creek, they found themselves at a pretty perfect campsite. 

“Y-you and Richie are in luck, I p-packed extra shirts,” Bill said, pulling two pink t-shirts from his bag. A large cartoon bird and the words “The Real Finches” decorated the front. Ah yes, the boyfriend’s band. Stan had almost forgotten about him.

“I gotta say Bill, this is definitely my color,” Richie said as they all sat around the small campfire Eddie had built. “But damn, personal chemistry hobbit? That’s cold, even for Greta.”

“Th-there’s plenty of other girls out there Richie, I’m s-s-sure one of them will appreciate you.”  
“Ok sure Mr. ‘I have a hot boyfriend who I have crazy wild sex with whenever I want’ you don’t have to rub it in our faces.”

“What? Oh sh-shit,” Bill said, suddenly looking at Stan and Richie’s shirts. “I’m sorry, but that w-was a lie. I kissed that guy once at a p-p-party, and then he randomly gave me a shit ton of his band merch because he th-thought I was super into it or s-something,” Bill buried his face in his hands. “Besides, he l-lives in Castle Rock.”

“Is that where you’re from?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah we m-moved last year because of a f-family thing,” Bill said, frowning a bit at the memory.

“Can I make a confession?” Richie asked, not waiting for an answer before continuing. “I’ve never really done it with a girl, like not even missionary style.” 

“Richie y-you’re fifteen. I’ve only k-kissed that one guy, so I’m not d-doing any better.”

“Well, I have another confession. I’ve never actually kissed anyone either.” Richie stared intently at the fire, obviously a little embarrassed.

“I’ve never kissed anyone either,” Eddie said.

“I think I kissed a girl in like fifth grade maybe?” Stan said. “Wasn’t good, but you know, we were ten so I’ll cut us some slack.” The conversation waned a bit after that, and after a bit, they put out the fire and retreated into the two small tents (Eddie and Richie in one, Stan and Bill in the other), drifting off to sleep almost instantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im very excited for the next two chapters (the second one being not based on a scene in the movie but more of a "missing scene" or something so im excited for that) hopefully they don't take me over ten days to write but im not holding myself to anything lmao


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy chapter two digital release day! Did yall cry at the alternate eddie d***h scene and seeing the kids being Tiny from the chapter one interviews? I sure did. also shout out to all of the kids for picking up on richie being gay in chapter one except for finn lmao

After a few hours of restless sleep, Stan decided to head outside and sketch. He had never been one for camping or sleeping outdoors, and he needed a nice relaxing activity to take his mind off of the uncomfortable ground and the many weird noises. He headed out a little ways past the campsite, so the light of the lantern wouldn’t bother anyone, and almost ran right into Bill. “What are you doing up?”

“Peeing, d-dude. I should ask you the s-s-same thing.” 

“Don’t tell anybody else this, but I kinda hate camping. I mean, Eddie kinda hates it too so you probably could tell him and Richie, but whatever you know?” He sat on a close by log, and Bill quickly followed. Stan opened his sketchbook and flipped through until he found the picture of the Labrador duck he had been working on since he got home from the meeting with Dr. Maturin. The shading wasn’t good enough, and he wanted this one picture to be just right. Something that his dad would’ve been truly proud of.

“Really t-trying to perfect that one, huh?” Bill asked, peering over Stan’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s- it’s weird,” Stan said with a shrug, trying to say something about his dad, but everything was getting caught on his tongue.

“My b-brother was kidnapped l-l-last year. That’s why we m-moved,”Bill said suddenly.

Stan’s eyes widened. “Like ‘kidnapped’ kidnapped?” He couldn’t imagine anything like that happening. Of course, him and his friends were 15, and the only one with a sibling was Richie and his sister was a senior, so none of them were in the most dangerous age range for kidnapping, but still. It was awful to think about.

Bill busied himself with brushing the hair out of his eyes and adjusting his shirt sleeves before speaking again. “Yeah, it w-was a guy wearing a fucking c-c-clown suit. He l-lured him in one day when G-Georgie was playing in the rain. And I f-feel so fucking awful because I t-t-told Georgie I was sick because I, I didn’t w-want to play with him, so I j-just sent him out with a s-stupid paper boat. I’ll never f-forget the look on his face when he s-saw me again after they f-found him. I don’t think he knew I was faking it, but it l-l-looked like he did at that m-moment.” Bill took a deep breath and kicked around some dirt, “I’ve n-never told anyone beside my th-therapist that,” he admitted.

“I have a therapist too,” Stan supplied. At first, it was just a grief thing, but talking to her helped with his anxiety, and it was nice to just get everything out in the open. His mom was always there for him, but after his dad, Stan really hadn’t wanted to bother her with anything like that which sounded dumb now, but at the time he just didn’t want her to worry about anything. He wanted her to be happy, and he supposed that she was now.

“Yeah I would h-hope so,”Bill said. “I mean no offense, b-but you kinda seem like you need it.”

Stan nodded. “Yeah,I mean, me and my dad were really close. He’s the one who introduced me to birding, we would go out on most weekends and just sit in a park and hang out. It was nice, you know? Having the stress of school and everything, but knowing that I would have a nice weekend outing ahead of me was always a comfort. When he died, I just kind of broke down. I was angry at the world for taking him. We had a shiva for him, which was kind of unnecessary because dad barely went to the synagogue, and all my relatives told me how strong I was and all I wanted to do was grab them by the shoulders and scream ‘can’t you see I’m not ok? Can’t you see I’ve broken apart and no one has the right tools to put me back together? can’t you see I lost one of the people who fully understood me?’ because it was true. My mom tried her hardest to work with my anxieties, but she doesn’t really get the like my dad did. I wanted my dad back so that he could help me through his death. And now my mom has Will, and he is truly a great guy, and I know that two years isn’t moving to fast but-”

“But you h-haven’t really moved on and you d-don’t why she has already,” Bill finished.

“Yeah. I mean they were happy together, they never really fought or anything. I want her to be happy again, I do, but I don’t know it’s just kinda weird to me.” Stan said. 

Bill placed his hand on Stan’s knee. “I get it,” he said. They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, Bill’s hand still on Stan’s knee as he added more highlights to his duck drawing. 

‘This is nice,’ Stan thought. ‘I wish, I wish he was my boyfriend so we could do stuff like this all the time. Well, maybe not the pouring out our emotions thing, but just sitting here like this. I've known this boy for a few days, and he already feels like, like home I guess. Familiar, warm, comforting, all of those things. Wow, I didn’t realize how corny that sounds, guess I got it bad.’ He wanted to say something like that, a confession of feelings or anything like that but instead he blurted out “I think you might be easier to talk to than my shrink.”

Bill gave a small laugh. “Th-thanks,” he said. “I think it’s the stutter, m-makes me less threatening.” They both chuckled at that, and then Bill stood up and wiped the dirt off his shorts. “Goodnight Stan,” he said with a smile. 

“Goodnight,” Stan echoed, and with a small wave, Bill headed back to their tent. Stan spent maybe ten more minutes outside practicing feather shading before he too headed back to the tent. He gave a glance to Bill’s peaceful sleeping form, smiled to himself, and drifted back off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went pretty off script here and i think it's pretty decent so hopefully yall do too bc this was one of the scenes i was most hyped to write


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no one:  
absolutely no one:  
me: how about everyone just monologues? that's fun right?

About an hour after the boys had first retreated into their tents, Richie was still tapping away at the puzzle game on his phone. It was boring and repetitive,but it kept his hands busy, and most importantly it kept his mind distracted. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Bill had said earlier about Greta. Was he that obvious that even the new kid could see he wasn’t interested in her? Fuck! He had tried to perfect this facade that he was straight, and he thought he had it, but he guessed that his “perfectly crafted” facade was marred by cracks. He tried so hard to seem uninterested in boys because that just wasn’t, couldn’t be him. Sure, Stan liked guys, and Richie was fine with that, but he had just hoped that his own attractions were just a phase. He had reasoned it like this; everybody tolerated the loud annoying kid because they knew he wasn’t a threat or anything, but once they found out that loud annoying kid was gay, then all hopes being tolerated were thrown out the window, and he was scared of that. He was scared of being looked at as more “other” than he already was. 

And then there was the elephant in the room, or rather the hypochondriac in the tent. Richie had figured he had been in love with Eddie since they had met, but obviously, he didn’t really know that that was what he was feeling until later. It started out small, like Richie constantly making Eddie the butt of all of his jokes, or slinging his arm around his shoulder all the time, but it had graduated to Richie going to sleep with Eddie on his mind every night, feeling empty as soon as they broke physical contact, and just being overwhelmed with emotion every time Eddie would smile at him or breathe out his name in fake frustration. Everything Eddie did made him fall more and more in love each day, but he couldn’t tell him. He cherished their friendship more than anything in the world, and telling Eddie would more than likely ruin it, and there was no way he was chancing that.

As he continued placing the stupid blocks on screen, he heard Eddie rustle in his sleeping bag. “Rich?” he whispered. “Are you up?”

Richie turned to face him. “Yeah Eds, couldn’t sleep? You?”

“Yeah, I was just...thinking about a lot of stuff.” He sat up, and Richie followed suit. “You know, your jokes are pretty shit, and your voices are no good,” he started.

“Thanks Eddie, you really know how to make a guy feel special,” Richie said, cutting him off.

Eddie probably shot him a look, but it was too dark to know for sure. “I was saying, all the stuff you try to make your “thing” kinda suck, but you never let people see what’s buried under all those shitty jokes.” Richie swallowed hard. That’s kinda what he was trying to avoid, people seeing what he was really like, but he wanted to know where Eddie was going so, so he motioned for him to continue, “You’re so thoughtful, you know? You played my playlist the whole time you were driving, even though Stan and Bill gave you shit for it, but you did it just because you knew I liked it. And the granola bars you brought? All gluten free even though you know I can technically have gluten, but I’d prefer not too. And you hate oatmeal raisin, but you brought the most of them because you know they’re my favorite. You’re not the biggest fan of Bill, but agreed to let him come because you picked up on Stan’s crush on him. I’m willing to bet Greta mentioned having a house around here probably once but you remembered it anyway. And you jumped into the river first for my inhaler. You care about people more than you let on, and that’s probably the thing I love most about you.

Richie’s breath hitched. Loved? Was he really here, in a shitty tent in some dumb state forest at 1 in in the morning hearing Eddie Kaspbrak say the word “love” about him? “Eds…,”he breathed out. “You, uh, you’re the same way I think. You really let your mom’s influence take center stage, but you’re so much more than that. You’re so brave, no matter how much you like to hide behind your germ facts and pretend you’re not, and you have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. You care so much about everybody even if they don’t deserve it and that’s,” Richie took a deep breath and looked right at Eddie. “That’s what I love about you.” He had done it, said it, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to tell Eddie everything. It was something about this shitty little tent, he reasoned, that made him ready to spill his heart out. “I’ve been lying to you guys, and to myself, I guess. I don’t like Greta, never have, never will. She was just convenient, you know? She was my lab partner and she’s pretty enough I guess, so I figured that it would make sense that I liked her. I tried really hard to like her, but it never worked because I, I like you Eddie. Ever since I met you, I’ve liked you so much. I, I guess at this point it isn’t even ‘like’ anymore. I love you Eddie, and it’s ok if you don’t love me back, but just know that there’s someone out there who loves you more than you could even imagine.”

Eddie looked at him for a second, and then he proceeded to laugh. “Richie Tozier, I told you that I loved you, and you thought what, I meant it in a bro way or something? I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, but you were always talking about girls so I thought that it was never going to happen.”

“Yeah, I just, I was so worried about people knowing that I was,” he hesitated. He’d never said it out loud before, and saying it would cement it, make it real. Richie figured that if he could profess his love for his best friend, he could say it, but it still took him a second to gather his courage. “That I was gay.” The word washed over him. It felt freeing, to get it out in the open, that he wasn’t hiding it anymore. “I don’t know why I was so worried, because my parents are cool about that stuff, and all of you are accepting. I don’t know, I knew none of the people I care about would see me any different, but I was still worried about feeling different.”

“I get that, I mean, I never told anyone either. I had accepted that I was gay, but there didn’t seem to be any point in telling anyone.I figured I wouldn’t lie about it if anyone asked, but I wasn’t gonna go around announcing it. I think it was because I thought the boy I liked didn’t like me back, so what was the point if I couldn’t get the guy after my big dramatic coming out?” 

Richie took Eddie’s hand and threaded their fingers together.  
“Well we were both kinda stupid then because here you are getting the boy, and here I am,I said the word ‘gay’ about myself and the world didn’t implode. I mean, I always knew you were a little dumb, but moi?” 

“It’s not too early for me to break up with you, you know,” Eddie laughed. 

“So, we’re like actually boyfriends then?” Richie asked, his voice laced with awe. He hoped that when he woke up in the morning that this wasn’t all just a dream. He was here holding hands with the only boy he could imagine loving, and it was probably the best feeling he had ever imagined.

“Yeah, if you want to be,” Eddie said. Richie nodded immediately. 

“Eds, there is nothing else I could ever want more than to be your boyfriend,” Richie said, picking up their joined hands and placing a kiss to the back of Eddie’s. “God, this stupid ass camping trip is making me all sentimental, I’m going to have to complain to Stan in the morning” 

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll care all about it.” Eddie scooted closer, their shoulders pressed together. “But enough about Stan or anything else,” he said, a quiet fervor in his voice. “Can I kiss you already?”

“I didn’t brush my teeth after eating, I’m riddled with germs.”

“I don’t mind the risk, not if it’s you,” Eddie said, leaning in. Their lips met at a weird angle, and they were both inexperienced and awkward, but Richie was sure it was the best kiss he was ever going to get. Even if him and Eddie kissed a million more times, none of them would compare to the utter euphoria of this first one. Eddie’s hand cupped his face, his thumb running over his jaw, and Richie melted into the touch. Eddie tasted like those stupid granola bars, and even though Richie hated normally hated oatmeal raisin, he couldn’t think of a more intoxicating taste.

They broke apart after a few minutes, both of them grinning ear to ear. “Can you believe we were both fucking kiss virgins like three hours ago? Bill and Stan are quaking.” 

“Hmmm, maybe they stopped being dumb and got their shit together too,” Eddie suggested.

“Nah, Stan is too focused on the duck to get dick,trust me. Maybe tomorrow after we get the picture, but definitely not tonight. I’m kinda the Stan expert. Maybe even the romance expert,” Richie said, stupid grin still plastered on his face.

“Yeah ok keep telling yourself that trashmouth,” Eddie said. He sank back down into his sleeping bag and let out a contented sigh. "What a day it's been. I drove without my mom, almost lost my inhaler, and got a boyfriend. That's too much for my tiny sleep deprived brain right now, so I'm actually going to sleep for real. Love you Rich."

Richie felt his cheeks heat up. “Love you too,” he echoed, laying down in his own sleeping bag. Just as he was about to fade off, he made a mental note to thank Stan for suggesting this bird expedition, and then Richie Tozier fell asleep, holding the hand of the boy he loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact when richie said "ever since I met you, I've liked you so much" my computer told me to change it to "loved" and like bitch that's so LOUD  
i know i made them too sappy but u know what, stephen king killed eddie off so he can't say shit to me


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, ok I actually have an excuse for being this late my laptop charger broke so I’ve had to cycle between the google doc the script and the movie all on my phone and it’s very awkward so sorry for any typos anyway hope y’all enjoy :) :)

The next morning, Stan found himself awake before anyone else, and sat on the same fallen log from the night before, taking in peaceful sights and sounds of the forest. An owl perched on one of the branches of the tree right in front of him, and rather than pulling out his phone or his sketchbook, Stan chose to simply watch the bird preen itself in one of the only quiet moments he had had all weekend. After a minute or two, Stan heard footsteps behind him which were so gentle and careful they could only belong to Bill, who always looked like he carefully considered his next action long before actually acting it out. Stan liked that about him, the slow calculated way he moved and talked. He appreciated the genuine thought that went into being Bill Denbrough. Stan pointed towards the owl and let out a soft “shh” as Bill sat down. They sat there for a while watching the owl hop around the tree, Stan wanting to reach out and hold Bill’s hand, but stopping himself everytime the thought popped into his head. The tranquil scene was then rudely interrupted by the approaching sounds of vehicles and muffled voices. 

“What was that?” Bill asked, standing up and walking back towards the campsite. Stan followed, trying to find the direction of the noise. Richie and Eddie were sat in front of their tent holding hands, which was a detail Stan filed away to ask about later.

“What if it’s goddamn drug lords?” Richie asked. “They would have enough money for cool ass dirt bikes, which is a fact I’m very jealous of but that’s not the point.” Richie stood up and pulled a pocket knife out from his jacket. “If any drug lord even looks at me, I’ll fuck him up.” Richie waved the knife around in a flourish before he noticed Eddie’s glare.  
“Your plan is to knife them genius? And why do you even have a knife? You’re like the most accident prone person I know” Eddie plucked the knife out of Richie’s hand and stowed it away in his fanny pack. Richie turned his face towards the dirt, but Stan caught the blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Oh yeah, remind me, I need to show you something when we get home,” Richie said a little sheepishly. Just then, three familiar faces rode into the clearing on extremely stupid looking dirtbikes. Dr. Maturin along with Steve and Peter from the bird store stared blankly at the boys.

“Nice outfits,” the shorter one, Peter if Stan remembered correctly, said gesturing to Richie and Stan’s bright pink Real Finches shirts.

“So how we doing fellow birders?” Steve said, the dumbest smirk plastered on his face. “Find the Labrador yet?” Shit. They actually believed Bill back at the store. 

“What the fuck? You guys actually followed us? That’s weird as shit,” Eddie piped up.

“Chill kid, we’re just following our guide,” Steve said pointing at Dr. Maturin.

“Ever since you boys left my office I’ve been thinking it over, and I came to the conclusion that I absolutely must find this bird. I am a noted veteran of the field, and how could I trust what is probably the biggest ornithological find of the century to a group of amateurs. Ah, no offense of course gentleman. I’ve been guiding these lads around,” Maturin gestured to Steve and Peter. “And I thought the more people helping-”

“We don’t need your help,” Eddie interrupted.

Maturin looked a bit startled at that. “Yes, well, we’re simply expanding the size of the search party. A few years ago, hundreds of people were out searching the bayous of Arkansas looking for the ivory-billed woodpecker and yet we still couldn’t prove our claim.” Maturin looked over and seemed to notice Bill for the first time. “Who’s the new lad?”

“His name’s Bill and he’s a fucking fantastic photographer who’s going to get us our picture.” Richie flashed Bill finger guns and Bill shot him an awkward thumbs up in return.

Stan stepped forward a bit and looked at Dr. Maturin. “So what you’re saying is that we’d all get a shared sighting credit?” Was that what he wanted? Obviously not, but what was he going to do? Fight them or something? That was more of a Richie and Eddie thing to do and besides, Stan would feel pretty guilty about fighting one of his idols

“Ah, certainly. I should’ve prefaced this whole conversation with that,forgive me-”

“Yeah it’s fine sir,” Eddie cut in, getting impatient with the whole ordeal. “We think we saw something fly south a while ago. Maybe it was heading to Cedar Lake?” Eddie flashed Stan a comically exaggerated wink which struck Stan as an extremely Richie thing to do. 

“Yeah man, we should definitely stick to Cedar’s. It’s the most obvious thing to do,” Peter said, eating up Eddie’s lie. Cedar Lake wasn’t even the most obvious choice, the beginning of the river deeper into the forest was, but these guys obviously just wanted to sound smart without really knowing what they were talking about. 

“Of course it is, but we were thinking about checking the river. Maybe we should just split up?” Stan said. There was a waterfall there which fed the wide head of the river, the perfect resting place for this duck. It should’ve been obvious to Maturin, but he seemed like he couldn’t care less about this whole plan the more everyone talked. 

“A sea duck? Resting on a river?” Steve gave a condescending laugh. “Have ever even been birding before?”

“You better fucking watch it dude. Stan here has more birding experience than you two could ever think of having. If he thinks it could be on the river then I’m going to river,” Richie said. Stan flashed him a smile of thanks, forever grateful for his loudmouth best friend. 

“So are w-we ready then?” Bill asked. “I mean we h-have perfect lighting right now, we shouldn’t be wasting it standing here and t-t-talking.” 

“Yeah, let’s go. I guess we’ll be seeing you guys later. You know, since it won’t be at the river,” Stan said, gathering his backpack and turning to leave with his friends. He heard Steve and Peter start up their dirt bikes to begin their trip in opposite direction to Cedar Lake. 

“Thanks for trying to steal our sighting Maturin, it was super cool of you,” Richie said, flashing a quick salute to the man.

As they began to head out, Stan heard Maturin pipe from behind them. “Wait a minute, Stanley, may I speak with you for a moment?” Stan paused. He had kind of lost all his appreciation for Maturin, but he reasoned that that was a normal reaction for someone trying to steal his sighting. But, Dr. Maturin was still Dr. Maturin and he had been one of Stan’s heroes for ages. Any chance to talk to him was a welcome and rare chance, so Stan let out a sigh and turned back towards the man. 

“You know, I don’t view this as a you versus us situation Stanley. I’d say we’re just simply seven birders standing on the brink of history. I mean finding a presumed extinct animal is certainly nothing to scoff at,” Maturin said and Stan found himself nodding along, but mostly out of politeness. This was pretty much an us versus them situation especially if it meant their credit getting stolen. 

“Yeah sir, I agree, but this is something that’s incredibly important for me. It’ll get my name out there, and I want to do this to make my dad proud. The credit thing is a big deal and you’re already famous, and I don’t know I just don’t think it would be fair of you to steal our sighting.” Stan realized how repetitive he might sound, but he didn’t care. They were so close and he couldn’t take anything else standing in his way.

Maturin made a slight “hmm” at that, and then opened his camera and chucked the memory card, forever losing it to the vegetation. “I understand. You remind me of myself, when I was just starting in birding. I think if some old man had tried to worm his way into any of my sightings, I would’ve killed him. Thankfully, I always knew orange wasn’t my color.” Stan gave a small laugh at that. Maturin started walking, but in direction Stan’s friends had headed. “That sea duck is following freshwater ducks. And those ducks are headed towards the river.” The two kept walking until they caught up with Richie, Eddie, and Bill, but Stan decided to hang back a bit to continue talking to Maturin. “You know, I haven’t gone birding with the younger generation in a long while. I had always hoped my daughter would follow after me, but alas, her and her mother detest me,” the man said. “You said you and your father went out birding a lot?” 

“Uh, yes sir. Every weekend he and I would go to different parks near Derry, hoping to see some variety, but we never really did. Our favorite park was this one right in the middle of town. It had this huge bird bath that would attract a ton of common birds, but it was still nice to sit and watch. It was really peaceful, in that way that you can only really experience through birding if that makes any sense?”

Maturin nodded. Their conversation began to lull and Maturin gestured for Stan to go catch up with his friends. “Hey guys,” he said after jogging to catch up with them. “What’s going on up here?”

“Stan, you’re not going to believe this! Bill has never seen Freaked.” Richie lowered his voice as if it was a scandalous secret that shouldn’t get out. 

“Richie, Freaked is so bad that it’s up completely on Youtube because no one cares enough to copyright strike it. It’s not a surprise he hasn’t seen it,” Stan answered. The movie in question was a bizarre comedy that they all kind of loved, even Ben and Bev. “Anyway, enough about our awful taste in movies. What’s happening here?” Stan gestured to Eddie and Richie’s intertwined hands.

“What can I say Staniel except that I am,in fact,the romance expert?” 

Eddie gave a snort. “Last night you said you were going to thank Stan for bringing us here. You said the tent was ‘really getting you in the mood,’” Eddie said, punctuating the last bit with air quotes. 

“Gross,” Bill said.

“Ok I know I said some embarrassing shit last night, but I definitely didn't say that,” Richie said. “We can’t have our dearest Staniel and Billiam here thinking I talk about weird sex shit on the regular.” Richie flashed them all a wink.

“Yeah how could we ever think that?” Stan deadpanned. The conversation went on for a bit longer, mostly Richie and Eddie asking Bill about his taste in movies, tv, and music, before they reached the cliff overlooking the waterfall and river head. 

“Here we go boys, moment of truth.” Richie produced one of his many duck calls from his pocket and blew into it. “Highlight of the trip right there,” he said, which resulted in a small whap on the shoulder from Eddie. 

They all stood there for a minute, eyes raking over the water and vegetation, before a faint “quack” sounded. “Was t-that it?” Bill asked.

Stan looked anxiously across the water. “Maybe, I don’t know, it was a bit muffled.”

“Nah, it was definitely a greeting call,” Richie said, fishing his binoculars out of his backpack.

“Oh my god!” Bill said suddenly, pointing to a duck that had landed in the water right in front of them.

Maturin did a quick sweep over the animal. “That would unfortunately be a male mallard.” Bill let out a shrug in a “well I tried” sort of gesture.

“But wait, why did it answer to a scoter call?” Stan asked, turning towards Dr. Maturin for an answer.

“M-maybe it was raised by s-s-scoters?” Bill supplied. 

“I don’t think that’s a thing that would ever really happen,” Eddie said. “But I guess it makes sense?”

“You know, maybe we should check Cedar Lake, I don’t think anything’s going to happen up here,” Stan said with a sigh. It might actually kill him if those two assholes were right.

“Why would it go to the lake farther from shore Stanley? That’s practically unheard of,” Richie said.

“Practically, but not completely unheard of,” Stan replied.

“Gentlemen, there’s no need to go to Cedar Lake because I do believe your duck is right there Stanley.” Maturin pointed a wrinkled finger across the lake to where a duck was gliding through the water.

Eddie let out a low whistle. “Holy shit Stan! I can’t believe you found it!” Stan couldn’t help but break out into a smile, both at the duck and the fact that Eddie, who had been the biggest doubter, was the first to congratulate him.

“What’s it d-doing?” Bill asked, tentatively raising his camera.

“Preening, almost as if he knows he’s going to be on camera,” Stan said with a smile.

“Well, the l-light couldn’t be any better.” Bill knelt down, getting the angle just right, and began taking the shots. Stan couldn’t tell what the final product was going to look like, but he knew it was going to be loads better than his shitty cell phone picture. To be fair, anybody with basic camera knowledge could take a photo better than his shitty cell phone one, but he knew Bill would make that duck look like a masterpiece.

The duck swam around while Bill snapped it’s photo, but after a few minutes it began to take flight, skimming the surface of the water. Stan watched it fly, feeling elated that he did it, he found this duck, this extinct duck, when all of a sudden- BANG!

The duck, which had just begun to fly higher, sank back into the lake. Every single positive emotion Stan had shattered inside him. The duck, the duck he had dragged his friends along to go find, was dead. It was shot, and a golden retriever was carrying its limp body in its careful jaws. 

Maturin and the others turned and took off towards the sound of the gun, but Stan just stood there for a moment, in shock, not really noticing everyone had gone. This was supposed to be his big thing, his big break in the birding world, his big special moment that he hoped made his dad happy, and it was gone as simple as that.

Stan took a deep breath, collected himself just barely, and began to walk to where his friends had headed. It wasn’t a far walk, just beyond some tall trees, and there he was. The man was dressed in hunters camouflage, a gun in one and the Labrador duck in the other. He seemed a bit taken aback by the crowd that had formed around him.

“What the fuck man? You just shot an extinct duck!” Richie yelled, stepping closer to the man.

Maturin held his arm out in front of Richie, stopping him. “Calm down, I’ll handle this.” He stuck his hand out for the man to shake. “Hello sir, I’m Dr. Maturin, and my boys and I here were tracking the animal you just shot.” 

“I’m Robert Gray, pleased to meet you but I’m not sure your boy there knows what the word extinct means.” He stared at Maturin’s hand, not shaking it. 

Unfortunately, this was also when Peter and Steve rode in on their stupid dirt bikes. “Whoa. How did this happen?” Steve asked.

“This idiot shot it. Obviously,” Eddie said gesturing towards Robert with the gun and duck still in his hands. 

“Everyone, relax,” Maturin said, looking at Steve and Peter.

“You shot an extinct duck sir,” Peter said.

Robert Gray looked around, a confused look on his face. “Does extinct mean something different now or what?” Just then, the Labrador duck made a faint noise and pitifully flapped its wings as best as it could while still in the man’s grasp.

“It’s suffering,” Stan choked out. That sad noise broke him even more than watching it get shot.  
It was awful to make the comparison, he knew that, but Stan couldn’t help but think of when his dad got worse, not being able to do much of anything besides talk and watch the birds outside his window. Stan’s heart broke at the memory. 

“May I see the bird?” Maturin asked. Robert shrugged and handed him the slightly shaking duck. Maturin quickly snapped its neck, a move that made Stan and Eddie quickly turn away. After the duck was surely dead, Maturin held it up and inspected the animal closely.

“Stanley, I have what may be good or bad news for you. This is not a Labrador duck. I believe what we’re looking at here is a hybrid mallard that has a particularly odd plumage pattern. Notice the wing markings, those are completely wrong for a Labrador.”

“I was always concerned about the wing markings,” Eddie whispered. 

“If you don’t mind, I need the animal back now,” Robert said. “I’m taking it back to our church banquet. It’s a fundraiser to help feed hungry children.”

“Well, that is a bit of a silver lining,” Maturin said decidedly.

Stan couldn’t take it anymore. The duck had looked right at him as it died, and that image was burned into his mind. It mixed with the image of his dad on the last day he ever got to see him, a spiral of the two images winding about in his head. He sat down near everyone’s discarded backpacks and tried to calm himself down to no avail. 

He heard footsteps in front of him, and looked up from his lap to see Bill sit down next to him. “It was j-just a hybrid mallard. That’s g-g-good right? It wasn’t the L-Labrador.” Stan didn’t know why but that was what broke him. He sobbed into Bill’s shoulder, not completely sure why he was crying, but also absolutely sure at the same time. He couldn’t describe it, the weird concoction of grief and blame and sadness and regret bubbling inside of him.

“It looked right at me Bill. It didn’t have to suffer like that.” Stan buried his head further into Bill’s shoulder, knowing that if he looked into the boy’s kind and understanding eyes he’d probably lose it more.

“I know,” Bill answered, rubbing circles into Stan’s back. 

“Why’d he have to die?” Stan croaked out, finally vocalizing what he’d been wanting to say all along. It wasn’t fair, life wasn’t fucking fair. His dad was fairly young, he had a whole life ahead of him, but he got taken from that life he deserved for no reason, for absolutely no good fucking reason. The man who cared so much about life and nature and appreciating everything that you had wasted away in a hospital bed for no reason except that the world loves to do nothing more except rid itself of the best people. 

“I d-don’t know why,” Bill said softly.

Stan detached himself from Bill’s shoulder, wiping away his tears before he turned to look at Bill again. “You know in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the bad guy that goes around, and he rips the hearts out of people, and then he holds it up in front of them so they can watch it beat while they die?” 

Bill nodded solemnly. “I h-hate that part.”

Stan sighed, more tears running down his face. “I don’t know if it’ll ever stop hurting,” he admitted.

“Well, m-maybe one day, it’ll feel l-l-less awful than ‘ripping an organ out of y-your chest’ p-pain, but my guess is that it’ll always h-hurt.” Bill held out his hand, and Stan gave it a comforting squeeze. It did feel as nice as he had imagined it would.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Thank you,” he said.

“Anytime,” Bill answered, the most reassuring and honest smile on his face. 

Stan wanted to sit there holding hands and smiling at Bill Denbrough forever, wanted to capture that moment in a bubble and live in it until the end of time, but a thought came racing into his head. “What time is it?” 

Bill squinted at his watch. “Umm, about quarter til’ th-three.”

“Shit! The wedding is at six, do you think we can make it?” 

Bill’s eyes widened at the mention of the wedding. “We d-don’t have a car. Oh shit, umm, m-maybe Maturin and his ‘friends’ could give us a lift?” he asked hopefully.

Stan shrugged. “Worth a shot,” he said. He offered Bill a hand in getting up, and blushed when he realized Bill wasn’t going to let go. They walked over to where Maturin, Steve, Peter, Richie, and Eddie were having a discussion about Maturin’s trip across Europe sixteen years ago. “Excuse, Dr. Maturin? My mom is getting married in three hours and our car is currently…not drivable. Is there any way we could get a ride?” 

Steve looked like he was going to interject, but Maturin waved him off. “Anything for my fellow birders.” 

They trekked back to the parking lot in mostly comfortable silence. Richie would pop in with whatever joke would cross his mind at the moment, but mostly only Eddie laughed at them. Stan was extremely happy that those two had managed to figure it out and actually get together. He figured it would probably make it unbearable to be in the same room as them, but he could handle it. Maybe.

When Steve and Peter presented their truck, the four boys couldn’t help but break out in borderline hysterical laughter. It was the truck they were so concerned belonged to drug lords. Peter flashed them a weird look, but they all silently agreed not to explain anything.

It turned out the truck only had a front seat, so the four boys were relegated to sitting in the truck bed, something Stan had major qualms about at first, but he reasoned that it was his only way home, so he couldn’t be too picky. 

“So, I guess they weren’t really drug lords,” Eddie said, after a while of all of them sitting in a peaceful quiet, just watching the rows and rows of corn go by.

Richie lifted his head from where it rested on Eddie’s chest. “Yeah, they’re like further away from being drug lords then we are.” 

Bill let out a small gasp, like he just remembered something. He let go of Stan’s hand (yeah, he had been holding Bill Denbrough’s hand the whole car ride, and yeah, he couldn’t really believe it either) and dig around in his backpack. He pulled out the plastic bag. Bill opened it, and popped one of the pieces into his mouth. He smiled. “It’s r-rock candy.”

“Toss that over here,” Richie said. Bill obliged and Richie examined the bag, sniffing the contents. “Goddamn it, it’s Lizzie’s pineapple rock candy she makes for everyone’s birthday. Can’t believe I forgot about my whole ass sister’s signature move. Nice work Billiam,” he said, throwing up some finger guns. 

“Congrats on your first successful ID Bill,” Eddie said. 

“It’s g-going on my life l-l-list,” he laughed. 

Stan leaned his head against the back window. Sure, most of the weekend had been…less than desirable, but it was kind of worth it for this. A nice peaceful car ride where everyone was getting along, the car was 99% definitely not going to break down, there were no fake drug lords trailing them, and he was holding a cute boy’s hand. He didn’t know where things were going to go with Bill, but he was fine with where it was right now. Stan felt completely blissful, and as a surprise to even himself, he was looking forward to the wedding. He just hoped they wouldn’t be late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the last and I will be sad to finish her but also glad to actually be done u know anyway, hope you guys have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, or just a nice day :)


End file.
